scholarly journals More journal articles and fewer books: publication practices in the social sciences in the 2010’s

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Savage ◽  
Anthony J. Olejniczak
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Journal Article ◽  
Publication Output ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Publication Practices

Over the past few years, the rate of journal article publication has increased in most academic disciplines - in some cases more than doubling in the past decade. While journal articles are the de facto currency of knowledge production in many science disciplines, social science scholars routinely publish books as well as journal articles. The social sciences have also undergone a rapid transformation towards more quantitative methodologies, thus representing a unique opportunity to study the increased rate of journal article publication in an area where books are also an important mode of dissemination. We studied the publishing activity of social sciences faculty members in 12 disciplines at 290 Ph.D. granting institutions in the United States between 2011 and 2019. In all disciplines, journal articles per person increased between 2011 and 2019 by between 3% and 64%, while books per person decreased by at least 31% and as much as 54%. Overall, early career researchers show the largest increase in rates of journal article production, while senior scholars show the greatest increase in participation in journal article production. Younger scholars appear to have greater publication output, while growing numbers of older scholars turn towards journal articles as a means of disseminating their work in the social sciences. We observe growing uniformity in the disciplinary literatures of the social sciences, which increasingly resemble the physical and biological sciences in terms of publication practices.

scholarly journals Towards proper evaluation of book publishing in the social sciences

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnar Sivertsen ◽  
Elea Giménez-Toledo ◽  
Nataša Jermen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Journal Article ◽  
Book Publishing ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Scholarly Book ◽  
Publication Patterns ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Publishing

Books are important in the social sciences. Monographs and edited books allow for presenting original research based on methodologies or forms of collaboration that the format of the journal article does not serve as appropriately. Books are also used to engage directly with society. This chapter first introduces book publishing in the social sciences as a diversity of genres, purposes, and audiences. We then limit the scope to peer-reviewed scholarly book publishing and describe how publication patterns differ among the disciplines of the social sciences in the dimensions of books versus journal articles and national versus international publishing. Then we focus on the structure of the scholarly book publishing market with particular attention to developments towards open access publishing. The chapter ends with our suggestions for principles that can guide proper evaluation of book publishing in the social sciences.

Populism and the yearning for closure: From economic to cultural fragility

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-492
Author(s):  
Sibylle van der Walt
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social World ◽  
Western World ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Western Democracies

Since the Brexit-vote and the election of a far-right businessman as President of the United States, the social sciences have been struggling to explain the societal conditions that nourish the increasing appeal of far-right parties and leaders in the Western world. The article’s main thesis is that the currently leading sociological paradigm, the theory of globalization losers, is not sufficient to understand the social dynamics in question. Starting from a discussion of the recent work of German sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer, it is argued that the best insight in far-right voter’s motivations and emotions can be found in the work of Margaret Canovan. The article shows further that a sociological investigation into the socio-psychological dynamics of the rise of the far-right should take into account broader cultural transformations that have been weakening the social world of Western democracies in the past 30 years, namely individualization, acceleration and demographic decline. In times of crisis (the ‘modernization’ of Eastern Europe and the financial crisis of 2007), these transformations become manifest as a general crisis of advanced capitalism.

The “Historical Turn” in the Social Sciences

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert S. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Past ◽  
Professional Societies ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
The Social

The first professional societies in the United States, from the 1880s to the 1910s, understood history to be closely associated with the other social sciences. Even in the mid-twentieth century, history was still grouped with the other social sciences, along with economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology. But in the past few decades, history and anthropology in the United States (though not necessarily in other countries) have moved away from the social sciences to ally themselves with the humanities—paradoxically, just when the other social sciences are becoming more committed to historical research.

Populism Studies: The Case for Theoretical and Comparative Reconstruction

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cihan Tuğal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
The Past ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Historical Methodology ◽  
Comparative Reconstruction ◽  
Blind Spots

Studies of populism have shifted from substantive to discursive/performative and institutional perspectives in recent decades. This shift resolved some long-standing problems but insulated the analysis of populism from theoretical and methodological debates in the social sciences. Theoretical restrictions have gone hand in hand with geographical neglect: The near-exclusive focus on the United States, Europe, and Latin America reinforces the blind spots of these existing approaches. An integration of overlooked regions holds the potential for theoretical reconstruction, even though such comparative broadening could as well simply reproduce the persistent impasses. Moreover, post-2016 developments have induced a return to substantive issues, throwing into sharp relief what populism studies have been missing during the past decades. The main challenge today is synthesizing socioeconomic analyses with institutionalist and discourse-theoretical advances without falling into eclecticism. Breaking away from the entrenched regional orientations to embrace a more global-historical methodology could help such an endeavor. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 47 is July 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Clausewitz: A Bibliographical Survey

1965 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Paret
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Partial Loss ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Bibliographical Survey

The vitality of the social sciences in the United States has not prevented some of its most influential pioneers from becoming unread classics. A widespread preference for textbook treatment and up-to-theminute analysis plays its part; but if the reader does want to turn to the originals, he often finds that they are not readily available. Complete and scholarly editions of writers who pursued new directions of inquiry are rarer than might be supposed—even in their native language. The situation is particularly bad when it comes to foreign authors. A writer's theories and insights may be transmitted through one or two major works, while the rest of his output is ignored, so that his thoughts are analyzed in isolation, without benefit of the preliminary sketches, correspondence, and marginal studies that would give depth and suppleness to the interpretation. Until recently Rousseau and Tocqueville have been in this position; another case in point is Max Weber, ignorance of whose fertile theorizing has misled more than one commentator. Still another, and extreme, example of intellectual discontinuity is provided by Clausewitz. Much of his work has never been published; even in German most of it is out of print; little of it has ever been translated. The result has been the partial loss of a remarkable historical and theoretical achievement. To the American reader, in particular, Clausewitz rarely means more than the “philosopher of war,” a famous name associated with one or two clichés backed up by little of substance. Repeated attempts to outline Clausewitz's thought, or to present the “essential Clausewitz” in the form of excerpts, have never been of more than doubtful value, if only because his methodology and dialectic are scarcely less interesting than the conclusions they reach. It would be pointless to attempt the impossible once again. On the other hand, a brief survey of Clausewitz's writings and of the literature concerning him may provide a useful introduction to his theories and to the manner in which for the past 150 years they have influenced the study and the waging of war.

scholarly journals A Corpus-Based Analysis of the Lexical and Grammatical Properties of Arabic Abstracts in Social Sciences Articles

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alaa’ Mohammad Smadi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
The Body ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
The Past ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Quantitative Results

This study aims to analyze quantitatively and quantitatively Arabic journal articles’ abstracts written within the field of social sciences. It mainly aims to analyze the lexical and grammatical qualities of the abstracts in the five academic disciplines; Economy, Geography, Psychology, Sociology, and Law,. To achieve the goal of the study, a corpus consisting of 500,000 words was collected from various well-known Arabic journals, and then it was divided into five sub-corpora each of which represented one academic discipline. The Corpus Linguistics approach was applied to this study and the data were analyzed through using WordSmith tools (version 0.7). The quantitative results show that the abstracts in all disciplines show a similar word mean length, i.e. all of them is around (5). Qualitatively speaking, the results show that each discipline has its list of lexical words that are suitable for each discipline's genre. The results also reveal a small amount of variation in terms of the tense of the reporting verbs specifically those which are used in the introductory part of the abstracts. However, the reporting verbs used in the body and the concluding parts of all abstracts are characterized by the past tense, third person, and active voice.

AAA Committed to Greater Role for Anthropology in Public Policy

1979 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-30
Author(s):  
Louis Cimino ◽  
Don Zies
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
Active Interest ◽  
Basic And Applied Research

An indisputable characteristic of the development of the social sciences over the past two decades has been the growing federal involvement in many aspects of research and application. Whether we measure by the proportion of federal funding for basic and applied research, or by regulation of the research enterprise, or by development of substantive social programs, the, federal government has emerged as a (if not the) major patron of social science in the United States. In response, social scientists have begun to take an active interest in federal decision-making, and many new opportunities are emerging for social science input into the policy-making process.

International Research and Variation in Views of Ethnicity

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-72
Author(s):  
Ella Inglebret ◽  
Amy Skinder-Meredith ◽  
Shana Bailey ◽  
Carla Jones ◽  
Ashley France
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Classification System ◽  
International Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
The Past ◽  
International Scale ◽  
Publication Patterns

The authors in this article first identify the extent to which research articles published in three American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) journals included participants, age birth to 18 years, from international backgrounds (i.e., residence outside of the United States), and go on to describe associated publication patterns over the past 12 years. These patterns then provide a context for examining variation in the conceptualization of ethnicity on an international scale. Further, the authors examine terminology and categories used by 11 countries where research participants resided. Each country uses a unique classification system. Thus, it can be expected that descriptions of the ethnic characteristics of international participants involved in research published in ASHA journal articles will widely vary.

Local Histories/Global Designs

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter D. Mignolo
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Central America ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
South Central ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Border Thinking ◽  
East West

This book is an extended argument about the “coloniality” of power. In a shrinking world where sharp dichotomies, such as East/West and developing/developed, blur and shift, this book points to the inadequacy of current practices in the social sciences and area studies. It explores the crucial notion of “colonial difference” in the study of the modern colonial world and traces the emergence of an epistemic shift, which the book calls “border thinking.” Further, the book expands the horizons of those debates already under way in postcolonial studies of Asia and Africa by dwelling on the genealogy of thoughts of South/Central America, the Caribbean, and Latino/as in the United States. The book's concept of “border gnosis,” or sensing and knowing by dwelling in imperial/colonial borderlands, counters the tendency of occidentalist perspectives to manage, and thus limit, understanding. A new preface discusses this book as a dialogue with Hegel's Philosophy of History.

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document